Ref ID:	23684
Ref Type:	Book Section
Authors:	Bennett, Anna
Title:	Bronze casting in protohistoric Southeast Asia, the technology and its origins
Date:	2008
Source:	From <i>Homo erectus</i> to the living traditions
Place of Publication:	Chiang Mai
Publisher:	European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists
Notes:	Choice of Papers from the 11th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists, Bougon, 25th-29th September 2006.
Abstract:	Were Dongson situlas and the large Dongson Heger drums produced by the lost wax casting technique? (Barnard 1996-97 De Silva 1990 Glover 2004 Higham 1996 McConnell 1986 Nguyen Viet 2005), or by the direct piece mould casting technique, which was widely used in China since the Shang period (Meyers 2005). Southeast Asia is a region where the degree of independent indigenous technology versus the diffusion from the Indian and Chinese subcontinents has long been a subject of much debate. The repercussions of the present question are clear if the situlas and drums were cast using the piece mould casting technique developed in Northern China, then there would be a very strong argument to support the direction of technological influence being diffused from there. Archaeological evidence shows that Iron Age Southeast Asia widely practiced lost wax casting, well before it was adopted by the Chinese in the middle of the first millennium BC, a date which coincides with the earliest Vietnamese Heger I type drums. With the exception of the work of McConnell (1986) and de Silva (1990) there have been no published scientific examinations of bronze vessels and drums focussing on their methods of manufacture. The present paper serves to highlight some of the dilemmas and contradictions, which the evidence presents.
Date Created:	10/7/2008
Editors:	Pautreau, Jean-Pierre Coupey, Anne-Sophie Zeitoun, Valéry Rambault, Emma
Page Start:	151
Page End:	163